Archery & Parrying

I'm curious. Does anyone use parry or archery (not on the same build) out in the wild. I just wanted to hear everyone's thoughts.

I have a provo/archer, but I find it takes forever to kill anything. I also have a fencer/parry-er with magery and no provo... but I'm trying to decide how useful he is. Having 80 AR is pretty sweet ... but does it matter if I can just provo?

I'm debating on axer or even just plain old swords or macing.

Parrying is arguably not worth it. Due to there being better 7th options.
archery isn't amazing but after the small buff. It's somewhat more viable. I saw many people doing very well with Provo + Archery during the Halloween event.

LJ axer is the big deeps dmg with a double axe.
Macing is good with a warhammer, can get good concussion blows.
Fencing has kryss and short spear with swing real fast and S.S. can stun.
Archery has bow for 'speed' and heavy xbow for big dmg hits. But keep in mind archery weapons are rarer to come by, even more so because magic ones can't be crafted with runics.

this is just my point of view. having sword/macer/fencer characters.
edit: oh and one more thing. Arrows and Bolts cost money. every time you fire your archery skill weapon you're shooting 6-7gp down range. somewhat similar to magery's reagent cost.

I recently gm'd parrying on my battle miner and imo my opinion it really wasn't worth it. I really wanted to like it too.

Like @Baler said, archery has its place during Halloween. You won't get top damage but it's not hard to get top 10 if you can find some quick arrows and stay consistent with damage output because you'll die way less and not have to worry about pushing through the crowd as much. It also has a use with fishing and farming ore elementals and golems. Outside of that, its mediocre and more for players that enjoy the pew pews.

Archery is fun in PvP in addition to fencing or other melee skill. I've dropped people running away with a well timed bowshot. Its a bit better after the last fix.

I started working on an archer but haven't gotten him in a good state yet... Maybe some day...

I had parry on my first char, a parry fencer, but ended up dropping it as well as healing to do more of a hybrid fencer mage build instead.

I use to have a fencer/mage aka tank mage. But tank mages suck here on uo:r because the swing timer resets and is full duration when you equip. So you can't get wrestling swingspeed with hallys/spears/warhammers etc.

Kinda off topic but wanted to add this info.

Yeah, spear swing speeds aren't bad though

*digs into the oral archives*

Found this gem of a tale regarding a legendary shield handler.

@Pirul

The Struggle of Mars

FTFY

Thanks for reminding me about that!! That was good times!!

Regarding parrying, it is not necessarily the best skill for a solo player. However in a group environment it is awesome. Have the parrier be the tank and others cross heal, and you can take down whatever. If only we could provo monsters onto the parryier...

Thats pretty much all Id use parry for. I will say I put it on my Macer miner, because why not, and its pretty much easy mode. I could literally just bandage loop and auto swing and kill just about anything that wasnt a heavy caster. Parry macers > Every other "warrior" template in PvP, even axers.

Lumberjackers kill faster, and save you about as much bandies and harm as parry, because of that. Plus LJing has more uses outside of just smacking monsters.

Provo-Warriors are top notch, although its tough trying to find room for both magery AND resist.

Archery is much more radical after the buff. Its a bit weird though. Im getting more damage out of a GM bow than a vanq bow.
Oh, and for the LOVE OF GOD... ...do NOT use Heavy Xbows!!!! They have a swingspeed of 10. TEN!!! At 45 dex thats a 10.34 second reload time TEN FLUFFING SECONDS! lol Even at 100 dex, its got a 7.5 second reload time. Seriously, oh my god... *shudders*

.

I use archery from my boat when i am fishing...nice can kill without being hit, cept for any magic castings but works great i think

I agree with you @Zim . I tried the heavy xbow. I literally thought mine was broken.

I also noticed some other weirdness... there doesn't seem to be a difference in dmg between my vanq bow and my vanq regular xbow. In fact, the regular bow seems to do more damage.

Bow is a tiny bit faster (20) and has 1 min dmg higher ((9-41))
Crossbow is a tiny bit slower (18) and has 2 max dmg higher ((8-43))

swingspeed + the +1 min damage could show results of the Bow being better dmg.

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Heavy Crossbow 10 & (11-56)
sauce: http://www.uorenaissance.com/list/Bows/P

From my experiences Parry is only good if it is part of the intended build: Ie.. for RPing or because you like to fight lots of small mobs or earth elementals.

Archery is more for fun or because you hate chasing mobs that run away when near death. I currently am making a provo/archer for this reason.. hate chasing stuff for final blow. I am not a big PvP guy so I avoid the front line, but I have had lots of fun playing the support roll as Archer in many a large engagement.

I am dropping parrying on my dexer and placing poisoning...
but i felt i will miss it some day... no one mentioned the armor gain... is good to go to hunt with 56-60 armor... and yeah, when i meet some fencer PK or something like this usually they have to run after a few seconds on a 1x1 with the same level weapon...
but... i will try a gm poisoning, now... if i didn't like i will make another parry dexer......i don't care about what they say about parry efficiency... is just about playing style.

I think everyone likes the idea of parry.

In our memories of original UO it was fun/worth using a shield, its just not the case here.

After achieving GM parry I dropped it as well.

My first character here was sword/shield character like I used to play when I initially started UO.

You'll notice the shields item database section of the website isn't even populated with shield info http://www.uorenaissance.com/itemlist/Shield

That is about how useful the skill is